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Sign the petition: Swing states need to audit the presidential vote

November 23, 2016 - 5:41 pm

A report by New York magazine revealed that "Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump."

CNN, The Huffington Post, The Guardian and several other news outlets quickly picked up the story -- though FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver and Nate Cohn from the New York Times expressed skepticism.

What no one can dispute is that Hillary Clinton is now leading Donald Trump in the popular vote by 1.7 million votes. And once California finishes its count, her lead could exceed more than 2 million votes.

Unfortunately, the popular vote is meaningless in our Electoral College system. Trump is winning the Electoral College vote thanks to very narrow leads in key swing states such as Wisconsin (27,000 votes) and Pennsylvania (68,000 votes). And two weeks after the election, Michigan is still too close to call.

Voters in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan cast paper ballots that are counted by electronic machines. Fortunately, these machines can be audited to ensure that the results are reported correctly.

Given the high stakes of this election -- and how incredibly close the vote is in crucial states -- it's essential that the American people have confidence the election was fairly won. That's why Democracy for America is joining the call for key swing states to audit the vote.

An audit would not be a full recount, but a statistically valid sample that will prove whether the actual votes match the reported totals. If there's something wrong, we'll have evidence to take action --before the Electoral College meets in December.

Time is running out: Sign the "Audit the Vote" petition to demand swing states audit the presidential election before the results are certified and the Electoral College meets on December 19.

That episode and others offered clues to how Ocasio-Cortez and her social media practices fit into a national legislature that’s slowly becoming younger, less male and more diverse. The approach Ocasio-Cortez is modeling — and the political world is studying — gives her a measure of control by communicating directly with constituents and responding to critics in close to real time.

“She knows how to navigate this space in a way that others don’t,” said Yvette Simpson, incoming CEO of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee. Also, Simpson pointed out, “She’s not accountable to that power structure” in Congress. “She’s accountable to the group that put her there.”